4e RE: 2026 Remise de Kepi blanc in Toulouse | French Foreign Legion Information

On May 18, 2026, a White Kepi Ceremony (Remise de Képi blanc) of the French Foreign Legion took place in Toulouse, a major city in southwestern France. New legionnaires from the 4th Foreign Regiment (4e RE), the Legion’s training regiment, donned the iconic White kepi for the first time at Place du Capitole, the city’s main square.

Forty recruits from the 4th Platoon, 3rd Company of Enlisted Volunteers (3e CEV), led by Adjudant Abd El Hakim (a rank roughly equivalent to a Sergeant First Class in the U.S. or Warrant Officer in the U.K. militaries), earned their kepis and became legionnaires. Prior to the ceremony, they have completed a grueling 30-mile (50 km) White Kepi March through the Montagne Noire, a rugged, heavily forested mountain range north of the Pyrenees, carrying weapons and full gear.

The ceremony carried particular significance, as it was attended by veterans of the legendary 1978 Battle of Kolwezi. Nearly 48 years earlier, on May 19–20, 1978, during Operation Bonite, Legion paratroopers of the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP) jumped into Kolwezi, a mining city in what was then Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), to stop the massacres of civilians and liberate the city from Katangese rebels.

Among the spectators was Father Yannick Lallemand (wearing glasses and using a walking stick), a long-time chaplain of the Legion. Born in 1937, he joined the 2e REP in 1975 and also jumped into Kolwezi three years later. While serving with the 4e RE in Castelnaudary, well into his 60s, Father Lallemand continued to march alongside groups of recruits during their White Kepi March — in combat boots and with a backpack on his back. He left the Legion in 2018. In 2023, he had the distinct honor of carrying Captain Danjou’s wooden hand during that year’s Camerone Day ceremony in Aubagne.

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